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Advice on "geiger counter" to measure Fukushima radiation

The more I hear about Fukushima and its potential to pollute the entire northern hemisphere the more alarmed I get. Sounds like there is not much we can do but before it gets that bad I think perhaps it is time to consider getting something to measure radiation in the air but more specifically, in food. Tuna is already ruled out for eating but who knows what else is going to turn up radioactive and a measuring device sure could be handy.

I've tried to read up on what I need but the more I read the less I understand. Truthfully, I don't understand the difference between alpha, gamma and whatever. I don't even know what it is I am measuring for and in what quantities. This group of people on TB2K has impressed me with a lot of knowledge so I'm thinking some of you can help me know what it is I need to look for in a handheld device to measure for possible Fukushima radiation in the air and in food. (Like I said, I need all the help I can get on this... and as simply stated as possible.)

You really don't need to be alarmed. You need to be educated. Once you are educated you cease to be alarmed. The wrong thing to do is to go out and spend a lot of coin on a meter when you'll have no idea what the numbers mean or even what your looking for. I agree that you should spend time on Shane's site KI4U and do a lot of heavy duty reading. Once you've become educated you'll be able to figure out if Fuku is really a threat to you here in the U.S. or a lot of Internet hype. Getting cancer from Fuku and expiring from it is as likely as you getting hit by lightning. A lot more threats to your personal safety and well being from everything else that is going on. If after you begin to understand the subject matter a little more and can rationally analyze the threats to yourself then look at getting a survey meter and dosimeter.

What is the lake of fire? What is it's purpose? Is the lake of fire eternal hell? Is there any hope of escape for those cast into this lake?http://bible-truths.com/lake1.html

I think there is somewhat of a measurable danger for people on the west coast as far as seafood at least but I also think that hinges on the foods specific source as well. You can spend a lot of money on that equipment or you can do it on a shoestring. There is a lot of surplus CD equipment available but gear that is able to measure food rad levels is probably pricier.

If I lived on the west coast I would be somewhat concerned, not alarmed, but concerned and attentive to what is in my surrounding environment as well as my foods. I haven't done any recent research but I know there are rad level maps on the web that will give you ballpark readings for different parts of the country.

An important aspect to remember is this is ongoing. It's not like Fukushima has released some radiation into the environment. It is spilling about 300 tons of radioactive water into the Pacific ocean daily, there are three 100 ton blobs of corium deep inside the earth that are doing things we can only theorize about and from the possibilities it is not good. There is no happy ending that has even been brought up. And the fuel rods. Forty years to extract them, is Tepco's estimate, from broken buildings now sitting upon waterlogged soil and if they so much as make a mistake and the whole place goes up in a nuclear nightmare.... Oh, yes, if the corium hits the water aquifer that Tokyo gets water out of then all these 40 million or so Japanese people will have to leave.

No, I don't figure to die from radiation but many will. And if Tepco messes up getting these fuel rods out, well, we'd better all slap a big smile on our faces cause we could, anywhere in the northern hemisphere, get big doses of radiation coming at us.

We've heard so little about Fukushima from the MSM. When you take a bit of time to research it at all (and granted I don't know much) it is easy to see this is a BIG problem with incompetent idiots in charge.

The problems are not today and maybe not very soon but this could be the biggest problem modern mankind has ever faced and we'd all be better served by prepping all we can for it. But with all we can do it may be fruitless because Fukushima may be an extinction level event slowly coming at us and there is nowhere to hide.

An important aspect to remember is this is ongoing. It's not like Fukushima has released some radiation into the environment. It is spilling about 300 tons of radioactive water into the Pacific ocean daily, there are three 100 ton blobs of corium deep inside the earth that are doing things we can only theorize about and from the possibilities it is not good. There is no happy ending that has even been brought up. And the fuel rods. Forty years to extract them, is Tepco's estimate, from broken buildings now sitting upon waterlogged soil and if they so much as make a mistake and the whole place goes up in a nuclear nightmare.... Oh, yes, if the corium hits the water aquifer that Tokyo gets water out of then all these 40 million or so Japanese people will have to leave.

No, I don't figure to die from radiation but many will. And if Tepco messes up getting these fuel rods out, well, we'd better all slap a big smile on our faces cause we could, anywhere in the northern hemisphere, get big doses of radiation coming at us.

We've heard so little about Fukushima from the MSM. When you take a bit of time to research it at all (and granted I don't know much) it is easy to see this is a BIG problem with incompetent idiots in charge.

The problems are not today and maybe not very soon but this could be the biggest problem modern mankind has ever faced and we'd all be better served by prepping all we can for it. But with all we can do it may be fruitless because Fukushima may be an extinction level event slowly coming at us and there is nowhere to hide.

Well, alrighty then........

This is the first thread that I've pulled up today to read. This last post is 'classic' doomer. I like it! Even if none of it comes true, you've spelled out just how 'potentially' screwed we all are......good job, ELE and all.

BFC

"Stay in school, work hard, stay out of trouble and when you grow up, you can pay for those who didn't."

Geiger (GM) counters are low-level detection devices. Interestingly, their performance is very much dependent on their detector probe's tube. Many full sized GM counters were manufactured with BNC fittings that allow the use of interchangable probes/tubes. The three most common tube-probe combinations you are likely to encounter - in order of increasing sensitivity - are the old "hotdog" probe, the thin end window tube and the pancake tube.

The old yellow civil defense CDV-700 GM counters usually came equipped with a nickel-plated "hotdog" probe. By doing nothing more than replacing this with a pancake type tube you will increase the sensitivity of the machine by about three times! Of course then the mR/hr. scale on the meter's face will then be innaccurate. Some GM counters offer a counts-per-minute scale or a combination of CPM and mR/hr or other measuring metric. There are other types of probes, such as the scintillation probe, that can offer even greater sensitivities, though they are not as commonly encountered as the three mentioned above.

The hotdog probe is sensitive to gamma/x-ray and beta radiation, while the thin end window and pancake tubes will detect alpha, beta and gamma/x-ray to varying degrees. It is crucial to understand that no GM tube is 100% efficient. Even the best of them detect a relatively small percentage of the actual particles or photons striking the device.

Thanks. You know, I have peeked to see what is happening at Fukushima occasionally over the past 2+ years and thought it bad but surely they would/could get it under reasonable control and all would be fine. But lately what I've been finding really does scare me. Salmon not showing up, bleeding-out-of-every-orifice fish, 300 tons of corium busily going somewhere and maybe causing EQs as it does whatever it does, high - really, really high radiation levels around the plants, just lots of hints that things are getting much worse.

That's what I was afraid of. So it is not going to be a simple matter to detect all the possible dangers, is it?

Rolenrock,

Detecting very tiny amounts of contamination is difficult-to-impossible for most of us under field conditions. One example is alpha particles. These can be stopped by a sheet of paper or a thin film of water. Alpha emitters are extremely dangerous if they are inhaled or ingested and lodge in body tissue. There they will intensely irradiate surounding body tissue. Alpa containation is food is very difficult to detect unless it is on the surface. The food becomes self-shielding if the emitter is even slightly below the surface.

Fortunately, alpha emitters are rarely encountered alone in reactor contamination. They usually occur in combinations with other beta and gamma emitters, making detection easier. Still, very tiny amounts of contamination are hard to detect. As an example, uranium 238 has a half life of 4.5 billion years. If we had a hypothetical single atom of U-238 we could expect one disintegration somewhere in the next 4.5 billion years. I wouldn't sit around holding my breath waiting for it! Even if we knew exactly when that disintegration was to occur and had our geiger counter standing by, there is no guarantee that the geiger-mueller tube would pick up this single event!

In the real world, you don't have to worry about detecting single atoms of anything. Even microscopic contamination particles consist of countless trillions of atoms, usually consisting of different isotopes with varying decay rates. Still, as a general rule it can be stated that smaller amounts of isotopes are more difficult to detect than larger samples.

In some cases, a suspected sample might be placed near a GM tube and the count rate would then be measured over a period of minutes, hours or days compared to a known, non-contaminated sample. Another common method to test suspected contaminated surfaces is the wipe test, where are large area of suspected contamination is wiped with a sample collector (such as a paper towel dampened with water) and then measured. Obviously, one reaches a point of diminishing returns for the effort as sample sizes become progressively smaller and - unfortunately - even the smallest emitter can theoretically cause a cancer! Fortunately, In the real world, we are constantly surrounded by radiation emitters (both natural and man made) and the vast majority of them do no harm ... or do slight harm that the body repairs.

It becomes a numbers game. Think of it as nuclear roulette, where you try to reduce exposures to reduce your chances of disease. Areas of higher contamination are more likely to result in radiation-related disease than are areas of lower contamination. It really is - ultimately - that simple.

This is the problem with Fukushima and the dynamic that so many people either ignorantly or intentionally avoid dealing with honestly. Contamination rates are still relatively low in North America, but they do exist. This is beyond dispute. Some areas are more seriously contaminated than others. Also beyond dispute. Higher contamination rates result in greater incidents of disease. Period. People can argue the numbers, but not these three basic tenets.

Fukushima effects, in North America at this time, are not about massive amounts of radioactive contamination causing acute radiation sickness or people keeling over dead with their hair falling out. For us, at this time, it is about relatively small amounts of contamination causing relatively small increases in disease and death. In future, it can reasonably be expected to become more severe.

You really don't need to be alarmed. You need to be educated. Once you are educated you cease to be alarmed. The wrong thing to do is to go out and spend a lot of coin on a meter when you'll have no idea what the numbers mean or even what your looking for. I agree that you should spend time on Shane's site KI4U and do a lot of heavy duty reading. Once you've become educated you'll be able to figure out if Fuku is really a threat to you here in the U.S. or a lot of Internet hype. Getting cancer from Fuku and expiring from it is as likely as you getting hit by lightning. A lot more threats to your personal safety and well being from everything else that is going on. If after you begin to understand the subject matter a little more and can rationally analyze the threats to yourself then look at getting a survey meter and dosimeter.

Agreed

Because the levels are low, your going to need a better than average detector. With a couple of exceptions a refurbished Civil Defense detector is useless for your stated purpose, with current levels. Look at paying $500 - $800 (although someone here will pop up with a $200 meter and tell you it's just fine).

Getting yourself educated is critical. If at this point you don't understand a fundamental difference between Alpha, Beta & Gamma you certainly will not be able to determine potential danger with any level of confidence.

I bought Shane's NukAlertER (the expensive NukAlert with the digital readout). It's small enough to put in your pocket, but comes with a belt clip-on case. I used it to test the seafood and seaweed at our Super One food store. NO RADIATION HIGHER THAN THE BACKGROUND COUNT (typically between instantaneous readings of 1 and 30 uR/hr here). A store employee asked what I was doing and I explained. Next day he told my wife that he wanted one.

Geiger (GM) counters are low-level detection devices. Interestingly, their performance is very much dependent on their detector probe's tube. Many full sized GM counters were manufactured with BNC fittings that allow the use of interchangable probes/tubes. The three most common tube-probe combinations you are likely to encounter - in order of increasing sensitivity - are the old "hotdog" probe, the thin end window tube and the pancake tube.

The old yellow civil defense CDV-700 GM counters usually came equipped with a nickel-plated "hotdog" probe. By doing nothing more than replacing this with a pancake type tube you will increase the sensitivity of the machine by about three times! Of course then the mR/hr. scale on the meter's face will then be innaccurate. Some GM counters offer a counts-per-minute scale or a combination of CPM and mR/hr or other measuring metric. There are other types of probes, such as the scintillation probe, that can offer even greater sensitivities, though they are not as commonly encountered as the three mentioned above.

The hotdog probe is sensitive to gamma/x-ray and beta radiation, while the thin end window and pancake tubes will detect alpha, beta and gamma/x-ray to varying degrees. It is crucial to understand that no GM tube is 100% efficient. Even the best of them detect a relatively small percentage of the actual particles or photons striking the device.

Best regards
Doc

For a general purpose meter I suggest is something like the Radiation Alert Inspector model with the internal pancake probe. Made by SE International. Visit this site just for information and background info with lots of information links http://seintl.com/ and http://seintl.com/products/inspectorplus.html I understand some here will say this is more than needed, maybe maybe not.

Doc1,
Thanks as this is beginning to make a little sense. It is not going to be as simple as running a wand over a fish freshly caught out of the ocean and getting a reliable reading.

Right after Fukushima first happened, I dismissed that we could be affected and then I saw a charted map of dispersed radioactive cesium (I think it was cesium) and it was right over my area. I was shocked because we were about as far from Japan as we could get and still be in the continental United States.

I am learning. I do appreciate the knowledge.

Originally Posted by Doc1

Rolenrock,

Detecting very tiny amounts of contamination is difficult-to-impossible for most of us under field conditions. One example is alpha particles. These can be stopped by a sheet of paper or a thin film of water. Alpha emitters are extremely dangerous if they are inhaled or ingested and lodge in body tissue. There they will intensely irradiate surounding body tissue. Alpa containation is food is very difficult to detect unless it is on the surface. The food becomes self-shielding if the emitter is even slightly below the surface.

Fortunately, alpha emitters are rarely encountered alone in reactor contamination. They usually occur in combinations with other beta and gamma emitters, making detection easier. Still, very tiny amounts of contamination are hard to detect. As an example, uranium 238 has a half life of 4.5 billion years. If we had a hypothetical single atom of U-238 we could expect one disintegration somewhere in the next 4.5 billion years. I wouldn't sit around holding my breath waiting for it! Even if we knew exactly when that disintegration was to occur and had our geiger counter standing by, there is no guarantee that the geiger-mueller tube would pick up this single event!

In the real world, you don't have to worry about detecting single atoms of anything. Even microscopic contamination particles consist of countless trillions of atoms, usually consisting of different isotopes with varying decay rates. Still, as a general rule it can be stated that smaller amounts of isotopes are more difficult to detect than larger samples.

In some cases, a suspected sample might be placed near a GM tube and the count rate would then be measured over a period of minutes, hours or days compared to a known, non-contaminated sample. Another common method to test suspected contaminated surfaces is the wipe test, where are large area of suspected contamination is wiped with a sample collector (such as a paper towel dampened with water) and then measured. Obviously, one reaches a point of diminishing returns for the effort as sample sizes become progressively smaller and - unfortunately - even the smallest emitter can theoretically cause a cancer! Fortunately, In the real world, we are constantly surrounded by radiation emitters (both natural and man made) and the vast majority of them do no harm ... or do slight harm that the body repairs.

It becomes a numbers game. Think of it as nuclear roulette, where you try to reduce exposures to reduce your chances of disease. Areas of higher contamination are more likely to result in radiation-related disease than are areas of lower contamination. It really is - ultimately - that simple.

This is the problem with Fukushima and the dynamic that so many people either ignorantly or intentionally avoid dealing with honestly. Contamination rates are still relatively low in North America, but they do exist. This is beyond dispute. Some areas are more seriously contaminated than others. Also beyond dispute. Higher contamination rates result in greater incidents of disease. Period. People can argue the numbers, but not these three basic tenets.

Fukushima effects, in North America at this time, are not about massive amounts of radioactive contamination causing acute radiation sickness or people keeling over dead with their hair falling out. For us, at this time, it is about relatively small amounts of contamination causing relatively small increases in disease and death. In future, it can reasonably be expected to become more severe.

At this point, people are going to believe what helps them sleep at night. At least, as long as they can. Not saying this is all true but it is a counterpoint to "all is well with Fukushima".

Yes, I know he is not saying all is well.

I've wondered why people all over the world have not rushed in to help fix this mess. It truly needs the world's best nuclear scientists engaged finding a solution to fix this mess. When people demand their governments get involved things happen. I have not seen this happen here and when the media discounts the dangers by assuming the best, it doesn't serve the earth's peoples very well. This is truly an emergency and it seems people are fiddling....

Originally Posted by JF&P

After reading this post by Karl Denninger over at the TICKER, I'm no longer freaking out about Fukushima.

One thing to remember (this will drive some people absolutely nuts) a little bit of radiation may be good for you.

There are two schools of thought, 1) no amount of radiation is safe 2) but there are Numerous examples show that a little bit does no harm and my be good for a population, (although not for any one specific individual).

Radiation is all around us, in the soil, concrete, foods, outer space, rock, stone counter-tops in your kitchen.

In my area, San Jose Calif area, over the last few years my average background count has increased about 30%. Having said that it is still lower than the background count for many if not most of the communities in Colorado due to rocks and soil and their Radon issue.

My biggest concern is alpha and beta radiation (though gamma is also a concern, but its easier to detect) at very low levels in food. The only real way to measure that stuff (Alpha and Beta) is using a mica end window probe. They are very sensitive to low energy particles. Scintillation counters can also be used but are more expensive.

I will not be eating fish from the Pacific or Asia, period. I am concerned about rice and vegetables from Cali. Also fruit and wine from same.

One thing to remember (this will drive some people absolutely nuts) a little bit of radiation may be good for you.

There are two schools of thought, 1) no amount of radiation is safe 2) but there are Numerous examples show that a little bit does no harm and my be good for a population, (although not for any one specific individual).

Radiation is all around us, in the soil, concrete, foods, outer space, rock, stone counter-tops in your kitchen.

In my area, San Jose Calif area, over the last few years my average background count has increased about 30%. Having said that it is still lower than the background count for many if not most of the communities in Colorado due to rocks and soil and their Radon issue.

Actually Double_A, there are three schools of thought: Linear No-Threshold (LNT), Safe Threshold and Hormesis. In a nutshell, LNT means that any increase in dose represents an increased threat of harm, Safe Threshold is the school that believes there is an acceptable dose below which no measureable increase in harm occurs and the hormesis school believes that low radiation doses are actually beneficial.

I tend to enrage folks discussing this because I believe that all three models are concurrently correct...if you selectively interpret the data. Here's my take: As a practical matter, LNT (almost) doesn't matter - in absolute terms - because humans are exposed to various types of radiation from the moment of conception. Putting aside man-made radiation sources, there is an incredible amount of naturally-occuring-radioactive-material (NORM) in the environment. Additionally, the Earth (and its people) is constantly bathed in cosmic radiation, to include the massive amounts produced by our own Sun. There is literally no place on Earth that is radiation-free and never has been. It has been conclusively proven that even the smallest radiation dose *can* cause harm. As a practical matter, the vast majority of it causes no problems.

Nonetheless, we are confronted with a very serious moral question here: What right do governments and private corporations have to add any potentially-harmful (and deadly) amounts of radiation to our natural doses?

The Safe Threshold school is correct insofar as statistics indicate that below certain limits, provable links between radiation dose and disease become vanishingly small. A big problem here is that statistics can be fudged and in the case of the nuclear industry - across time, nations and cultures - the nuclear industry has a history of often falsifying and minimizing dose data.

The Hormesis School is probably at least partially correct, too! Small doses of radiation may indeed be beneficial for some life functions. It has been hypothisized that small doses trigger the body's immune response and may help ward off some diseases. It is also provable that certain radiation therapy procedures have had beneficial health effects!

So there! See? They're all correct! LOL No one gets out of this life alive.

I hope this has been at least a little illuminating to those trying to understand a very complex field.

Statistics can not speak to the individual, only to the group. If the group data shows not "provable" correlation or causation then statistics only can say THAT. It can not in any way be used to argue there is no effect, only that "there is no effect provable relative to the group". Otherwise it has to remain mute. The problem comes when an authority tries to apply the conclusions about the group to the individual.

Example: "It is 3 times more safe to fly, than to ride in a car." This is concluded by analyzing millions of accident records. However, one can not THEN say, "I am safer flying" because it all depends on the individual circumstances related to YOUR flying, not to the group. If you choose to fly an ultralight plane, or on a junky cargo plane in the Andeas "your mileage may vary" as they say.

This makes me wonder just how much radiation is in Wendys North Pacific Cod ....

Fish are at the top of the food chain, and the radio-isotopes concentrate as the move from single cells plants to krill to small fish to larger fish like Cod. Also, the maps are showing that the radioactive contamination forms an arc going from Japan up into the North Pacific Waters before descending to hit Washington-NoCal coastal waters. That is where the food chain is being poisoned the most.

Also, about a year and a half ago, I bought a complete RAD Kit from Shane, and since then, not a peep out of the rad meters here on the west coast, 25 miles southeast of Portland.

You beat me to it. Thanks for putting this up. Everyone on this thread should read this before going any further on freaking out about Fukishima. There is no huge conspiracy to hide anything, and 10000s of people are not dying from it. Yes, TEPCO is not doing all that great a job managing the situation, but they're not so stupid as to try to hide a real threat to health. In particular, the Japanese of all people are not going to underplay a radiation threat.

Just as with things like "planet X", if such a threat really were imminent it would be all over the news. There are far too many private individuals who actually know how to handle the relevant detection equipment for any government to ever hide something like that successfully.

Strike me down, and I shall become more powerful than you can possibly imagine

IF radio was ACTUALLY good for ya,
some entity would have long since stepped up to make shekels off of that.

Is it available OTC? By prescription?

Actually someone has stepped up to make money off of it, the opposing side. You've been here long enough to have read the articles and the incidents that I refer to. And no there is no pill for that, because it's all around you everyday, they can't make money off of that.

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